Thursday, December 31, 2015

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I have a dilema with a cousin of mine.  I had not seen or spoken to her since childhood, except for seeing her at a wedding twelve or more years ago.  She lives in the midwest, and our paths never crossed.  When my brother died she sent a kind note.  Then she called and soon she wanted to tell me all of her and her husband's troubles.  I thought I'd done a sensitive job of discouraging her.  But in her holiday card she brings up the health issues of her and her husband again and says she's going to call.  I don't know if this is lack of boundaries, lonliness or hope that I will help them monetarily.  It feels icky and inappropriate, and though I stayed with her family a couple of times when my mother, brother and I visited, mainly I stayed with another cousin or her mother, my aunt.  There is no intimacy to rekindle.

I know people when they get older look people up, get very sentimental, and want to "friend" people, but I'm much more private than that.  I'm not on Facebook, because I don't want to  have to respond to people I went to school with 50 years ago and read about their lives.  I want a REAL connection or none.  If that makes me a Luddite or stuffy, so be it.  This cousin has been whining to me when supposedly she was offering me sympathy at the loss of her brother.  I don't feel supported; I feel beleagured.  What to say?  Again, I will express my sympathy while offering nothing beyond it.  I am not going to write her a check, or visit, or extend myself.  I have plenty of cousins, and keep in contact with the two who've been there for me at every turn.  But this cousin is a stranger, and I feel there is nothing to build on. 

But restraining myself to formal politeness feels awful as well.  I'm pushed into a corner, and she gives me no leeway.  It's challenging.  I feel like all I can really do is pray for her children or sister or brother to aid her.  I feel guilty.  But I cannot feel what I don't feel:  any responsibility.

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